There is a pop-up for this in the Field Properties inspector panel, but nothing actually happens if a duplicate (or unique) value is entered. This is primarily because I haven't figured out exactly what I think should happen, especially with Text...

However, from a user relations standpoint in a non-beta full release, it would be nice to have these things noted somewhere easily searchable. I searched the Help document and the on-line forum with a variety of terms and found nothing about this.

Even better, maybe grey out these features in Panorama X so we know they’re there, but don’t expect them to work yet?

Obviously, it’s notated somewhere, as per the link, but maybe unimplemented features could be briefly noted in the Help document so we only have to search one place?

Help does include a page titled “Unimplemented Statements and Functions.” It not only lists which of those two categories are not yet carried forward from 6; it also breaks such down by which have hopes of being implemented in the future and which are deprecated and we should give up on. Many of the former are waiting on Server X becoming available. Most of the latter are either now irrelevant or have modern alternative ways to accomplish their past use. But it doesn’t list unimplemented and deprecated features that weren’t statements or functions.

Help is voluminous and good. It’s not perfect. Some obviously started with version 6 information and hasn’t been fully updated for minor feature changes. ProVue has built crowd sourced corrections into Help and also accepts corrections and suggestions via this forum.

IIRC all the field properties from Pan6 are currently implemented in PanX except the Duplicate and Link (used in 6 to optionally link Clairvoyance to another database’s field.) The former is listed in X’s Field Properties Panel, the latter is not; however, both are listed within Field Blueprints. A similar example is the Help page for DBINFO(, which lists options for ‘crosstabs’ and for ‘flash art.’ The former option is recognized by DBINFO( as valid, but is not yet implemented (a nice, as far as it goes, substitute is up on the Database exchange.) The ‘flash art’ option I believe is deprecated. It is rejected as an option by DBINFO(, but hasn’t yet been fully written out of Help.

Thanks John, for reminding me about the “Unimplemented Statements and Functions” page. I now recall using it in the past but had forgotten about it.

However, my point about user-friendliness still stands. You first have to know that the “Unimplemented Statements and Functions” page is there, since it doesn’t pop up at the top of the search menu or anyplace else obvious in Help menus, but is buried alphabetically down in the list.

Plus then the “Duplicates” option is not even listed on that page anyway nor is anything related to it. So searching for “duplicates” or “no duplicates” doesn’t produce any useful links.

Thus, my point is that a bit more effort spent on making Help more user-friendly would go a long way towards helping new users (and even long term, low level users like myself) find our way through the program.

I know this is a huge task, and while I continue to love and use Panorama X, it still feels a bit like software built by and for engineers, which gives it a steep learning curve for those of us who aren’t long term programmers. I’d love to see it be a little more accessible so that the user base expands and helps solidify Panorama for the long term. It wouldn’t have to be dumbed down for those who like the raw programming power, but just soften a few edges for us low level users.

I’d agree with your wishes, but I can see where from the ProVue standpoint there are tradeoffs with it. PanoramaX’s power and flexibility make it a huge project, but I doubt their current market share gives them armies of coders to get things done. Now, they are clearly trying to significantly grow that market share and wanting new users. However their loyal old customer base has been legitimately scared that Apple would break Panorama6 before PanoramaX became available. Those dependent on Server6 still fear that.

Trying to provide new serviceable versions of both in time competes with providing user-friendliness. Too much effort put into pointing out which old Pan6 features aren’t yet implemented risks scaring away new users from an ‘unfinished product.’ Those following this forum since the announcement of X have seen enough features restored and enhanced to engender faith that what hasn’t been formally deprecated will arrive, significant remaining bugs will be fixed. New users won’t have that faith.

I’ll offer a couple suggestions for Help. Tag those planned, listed but not yet implemented old Panorama 6 features therein with one of those pretty Font Awesome characters, I’d suggest star-half-o. Link that symbol to an explanatory Help page. If possible I’d also like to see an option to search for text within a given help page. The current search tool quickly get me to the correct page, but on the longer pages it can take too much reading to find my target. Other users can probably offer more suggestions. I’m confident they’ll be fairly considered. Although the results may not show up until after the initial release of ServerX.

If possible I’d also like to see an option to search for text within a given help page. The current search tool quickly get me to the correct page, but on the longer pages it can take too much reading to find my target.

I’d like this too but, in the meantime, there’s a simple solution. Go to the Corrections window:

Click in the text and the border will be highlighted in blue. You can then run a search. But you can’t search for items in the See Also list - they don’t appear in the Corrections window.

THANKS Michael! I never thought of using the Corrections window that way. Obviously I need to submit more corrections that way so I can think of it. And thanks for the ‘100s’ of Help corrections Jim credits you with making. Panorama’s many helpful users are one of its strengths.